Being in the spotlight
by T1gerCat
Summary: Taking a walk late at night has unexpected surprises for a young writer. Bella knew she'd regret being in the spotlight...


Being in the spotlight

**A/N:** Hey guys, I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking with this story but I wanted to try my hand at something all human….ish. Enjoy: D

My eyes squinted unwilling to fully open. My head was heavy and throbbing like it was back in my college days when I believed that sleeping was for losers. On top of that something was rumbling beneath me. When I forced my eyes to open completely all I saw was darkness. Suddenly afraid of the worse I reached out with a hand to see if I was in a coffin or merely blind.

Hey, both can happen if you keep the company I do!

One, I can barely see my hand and two, I was curled inside whatever it is I'm in. I may resemble a sardine but I'm neither in a coffin nor blind. Both things are good if you ask me! Forcing my brain to co-operate and ignore it's throbbing I realized where I was. I was in the trunk of a moving car.

Taking deep breaths I tried to stay calm and focus on all the things that could go wrong. I could run out of air, I could be kidnapped. My stupid friends could be playing a trick on me. Okay, so much for not panicking! Pinching myself hard n the leg I reigned in the terror.

How did I end up here? What did I do today?

Sue, Charlie's second wife had cooked dinner. It was their 5th anniversary and I had visited them taking a break from my own life. After dinner I had left them fairly quickly and Sue's children had followed suit. All three of us had walked in on them being in their honeymoon phase and it had scarred me for life.

No, not emotionally.

Both Leah and Seth had been in such a freaked out state they phased a little too close on me giving me each one long scar on my back. I looked like I had a cool tattoo of the Greek letter 'X' on my lower back and that is what I tell everyone who asks.

Anyway, back to the point. Not wanting to go back to my hotel (I wasn't crazy enough to stay with them) I had decided to stroll through Forks, the town I couldn't leave fast enough once the realization that my teenage vampire boyfriend wasn't coming back for me.

Walking through the park where inspiration had first struck as a teenager, I had played by the kid playground and was on the swings jolting things down on my trusty notebook. My first two novels had been national best-sellers making me one very rich twenty eight year old woman. My third, though, was still in its infancy. I had run out of ideas and had planned on using this trip back home as a crunch to jolt out the muses.

That is the last thing I remember. Sitting on the swings, with the hello kitty spiral notebook in my hands writing down random thoughts and ideas. Judging by the egg shaped lump on the back of my head someone hit me and probably tossed me in the trunk like groceries.

Who though? My enemies were of the supernatural kind and I doubt a vampire or a werewolf would use this as a means to transport me somewhere. Suddenly the car made an abrupt 90 degrees turn that sent me head first to the metallic frame of the car and I groaned in pain.

The car slowed and came to a stop. I let out a huge breath I wasn't sure how long I held and rubbed my temples. My head was rumbling louder but it would have to be ignored. I was a fairly good fighter (when I didn't hurt myself that is) but my white purse wasn't with me and my can of pepper spray was inside it. The trunk was suddenly opened and a ray of blinding white light shone on my eyes

"Can you move that?"

I groaned shielding my eyes and the star show they were producing for me.

"Get out. If you scream, I'll shoot you in the kneecap"

A deep voice said in a commanding tone. A leader voice. Once the stars were gone I tried opening my eyes again and saw the end of a gun mere inches from my face. Nodding I scrambled to climb out while shielding my eyes. Being true to myself I fell off and made a pancake on the stone path in the classic road kill position.

My captor let a long sigh. I blushed. Why am I blushing?

"Oh, stand up"

The man growled and forced me up by my hair. Ouch!

"Who are you?"

I asked him trying to save dignity while wincing in pain. My head felt as if I had jack hammered it and then lodged a loudspeaker in there.

"I'm a fan of your work, Miss Swan and I need you to do me a favor"

He said very calmly. I could make out his silhouette and he was several inches taller than me. There was no way I was going to overpower him.

"What do you need?"

"The keys to the gates. And your money stash. I believe both are in your bedroom safe"

"What? I don't keep money in my house"

I was confused. This guy knew my name and knew that I had a safe with money in my bedroom, but how? I looked up at the startlingly white house in the middle of the woods. This isn't even my house! It's the freaking Cullen house... that featured heavily as the gate between Hell and Earth in my books.

What? I can't be biased?

"This isn't my house"

I tried to reason with my captor. He growled worse than a pissed of werewolf.

"Don't play games with me, Miss Swan. I read The Gates. I know this is your house and that you keep $50,000 cash in your safe"

The Gates was my first book. It was about a woman who inherits a house in the middle of nowhere and that every night at midnight; monsters would pop out from its basement. Then she'd have to chase them and put them back in the basement. She'd also keep $50,000 in her bedroom safe so she could pay for extra fast replacement of anything the monsters would break. I, however, wasn't that stupid; I only kept about $5,000 in cash in case of an emergency.

"Elle Swanson is a fictional character!"

I scoffed. Yeah, I went real deep in concealing names!

"I'm not an idiot, Miss Swan. I know the difference between real and fiction. But I also read an interview where you said you based her on yourself, which tells me a woman with as much money as you probably also keeps $100,000 in her bedroom safe for emergencies and whatnot"

The man remained dead calm as if he knew what he was talking about. And he did; only it was about the movie that was going to be based on the Gates. Not me.

"I based her personality on me. Unless you think vampires and werewolves also exist in which case feel free to go inside the house"

I said annoyed. In hind side I shouldn't have since the man raised a meaty hand and backhanded me. I flew quite the distance and almost went headfirst through the glass doors of the Cullen house. I made an effort to stand up with my eyes glazing a little making see kind of hard.

"What the fuck do you want from me?"

I screamed. I still remembered Edward telling me the house was built in the woods for a specific reason. And that meant that no passing by cars would see us and stop or call the cops.

"I want the money and I was the keys"

He was starting to get a little agitated. I was afraid of what might happen if he became a lot agitated. Car lights suddenly appeared from the end of the road, and any wild grass that had been standing now met its maker as a vehicle approached.

"Shit!"

As the car got closer, I recognized it. I may be horrible when it comes to cars but I had many heart-to-hearts in this beat up silver SUV. Unless I was horribly mistaken it belonged to Mike Newton's mom. Why she'd be coming to this neck of the woods at the darkest time of the night was beyond me, but having one more person to worry about was not a heart warming option. As the door opened the man with the gun raced over, his gun up, and yelled,

"Get out of the fuckin' car!"

Now he was downright pissed. I finally got to see his face. He looked mean but not like a thug. More like someone who's lost a lot and has thrown causation to the wind. He was dark skinned and had stubble covering the entire bottom half of his face. The jet black hair was shaggy and greasy, like he hadn't showered in a week or more. He also had a Harry Potter scar next o his eyebrow. A scar that brought me back ten years.

"Tyler?"

I gasped. When Tyler screamed again a baby wailing was heard in response. What the... I raised one hand to shield my eyes and squinted to see who it was. A frizzy brunette.

"Jessica"

Is the rest of the school gonna show up?

Jessica froze which is perfectly normal to do when a well built former football player is waving a big ass gun at your face. Eyes wide, she looked at me, confused. I returned the look. Frankly I don't know which one was more surprised.

"Why are you here?"

Tyler spat at her. From the open car door Gloria Estefan was screeching about conga keeping company with the baby's wailing. I didn't know Jessica has a baby.

"I hate my baby. I was going to leave her here"

Jessica whispered. My heart went to the wailing baby even if I'd gladly throttle Jessica. Who in their right mind would leave a baby in the woods in May? Tyler rubbed a hand down his face.

"Shit. This is just fuckin' great, man."

He paused for a minute, trying to size up the situation.

"Tyler is that you?"

Jessica asked as she recognized him.

"Leave the baby in the car and go up against my car, now"

No sooner than Jessica complied, Tyler had hit her on the head with the gun and pushed her on the ground.

"Go get it, Bella. And no funny business or I'll shoot her and the kid"

Tyler's tone was dead serious dropping the niceties. I looked at the bleeding Jessica before nodding. What would he do once he realized there's no money? Would he really kill a baby? I can understand why he'd kill Jess, there was a reason I didn't bother trying to rebuild a friendship with her.

"Just don't hurt them"

I plead and turned around to the front door. One day Esme had shown me where they kept the spare key (under the matt, like all the normal people) so getting in the glass house was easy. Now what?

Ignoring the flashbacks to my PFH (party from hell) and the ghost of memories that greeted me, I tried to think. On my left was the grand staircase leading to the upper floors and the bedrooms. My protagonist's room was on the third floor naturally so I was supposed to go there.

However my attention was drawn to a small blinking light next to a hidden door by the floor to ceiling windows at the back of the vast empty room. The burglar alarm. Carlisle had set it up for appearances but IF I were lucky... Throwing a look over my shoulder and seeing nothing upsetting I walked quickly to it, careful not to trip over thin air and face plant once again. Reaching it I began pressing numbers in no sequence hoping it'd trigger the alarm. A small red button glowed.

Hopefully that meant the boys in blues are on their way. Hopefully.

On the other hand though, auntie luck rarely smiles my way so I thought of another plan and putting one hand to the wall I found the entrance to garage. A massive beast of faded white shone in the darkness.

"Please work, please work"

I begged it and scrambled to get on the driver's seat. Helpfully the keys were in the ignition. Kind of strange... oh well! Ignoring all memories of another ride in the same beast I put my entire weight to the gas pedal and the beast lunged forward. It drove straight through the garage doors its massive lights overhead turned on turning night into day and blinding Jessica and Tyler.

Jess and Tyler screamed as loud as the baby thanks to the thousand watts of light directly into their eyes. Unable to stop the beast I let it crush on a tree and hopped down just as 2 cruisers appeared with their red and blue blinking lights adding to the colorfest.

"Freeze"

A baby faced cop shouted from one of the cars and 3 more cops poured out. Charlie was one of them who ignored everything and rushed to me.

"Are you okay baby?"

"Not really"

I replied honestly

"I'm sorry I ruined your anniversary dad"

"That? It's okay Bells, if I had to go for a third roun..."

"EW Charlie! TMI"

I shuddered as Charlie let out a relieved laughter. Two cops cuffed Tyler as a hysteric Jessica told them what he did to her. Yet another car joined the party. It was a black convertible and its driver was red with anger and white with terror. A strangely interesting combo.

"What the hell were you thinking Jessica?"

He shouted to a flinching Jessica and took the baby from the SUV. The cries stopped almost immediately. A collective sigh of approval was heard

"I told you I didn't want her mike. So I was tossing her"

Jessica replied defiantly. The baby faced cop planted a pair of cuffs on her and tossed her in the back of the second cruiser.

"Don't tell me you didn't miss this lunacy"

Charlie said conversion ally. I let a wry chuckle and walked him to the cruisers. One had a morose Tyler and the other a defiant Jessica

"I don't envy you at all"

"Serial thief Tyler or baby abandoning mother Jessica. If only I could walk"

Charlie mused and picked cruiser #2. Watching the cars driving away I made a mental promise to sop by the station tomorrow.

"I didn't know you had a baby"

"Neither did I. Jessica sprung it on me today"

That's the easy thing with Mike. I could always pick up a conversation and it'd be like we hadn't spoken for 5 minutes and not 5 months or years.

"Are you sure she's yours?"

"She'd better be. She's won me over already"

I smiled looking over his shoulder at the heart faced baby with the clear blue eyes

"She's a cutie"

"Wanna go for ice cream? Catch up?"

Mike asked. I surprised myself

"Sure"

"Really?"

"Yes really"

"Huh... I knew I'd get you to accept a date. I just never knew it'd take me 10 years"

He mused making me laugh. All in all, he was right

"I could always get a sudden headache you know"

I teased him as he passed me the baby and opened the door for me. As he got inside and drove away I could have sworn I saw a globe of gold appear and disappear like a wink.

Nah, just my imagination

END

7


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